Research Interests

I am a member of ANU's Planning and Optimisation Group which is part of of the Artificial Intelligence Area.
My interests within AI include
planning, scheduling, model-based diagnosis, search, and reasoning
under uncertainty. My current research focuses on developing planning,
scheduling, and diagnosis techniques that can handle larger and more
complex problems featuring uncertainty, mixed discrete-continuous
dynamics, and coordination among multiple entities. I am investigating
applications of these techniques to future energy systems.

NICTA project "Optimisation for Future Energy Systems" (2012-2016).
The focus of the project is the design and implementation the planning and optimisation algorithms required to operate smart energy grids reliably and economically.

NICTA project
"SuperCom: Model-Based Supervision of Composite systems" (2006-2008). The project has developed a spectrum of model-based methods for monitoring and diagnosing distributed dynamic systems. These methods rely on decentralised reasoning, symbolic representations, and model compilation.

NICTA project "DPOLP: Dynamic Planning, Optimisation and Learning Project" (2004-2008). DPOLP has made a number of significant contributions
to building tools for planning with time and uncertainty, and to
bridging the gap between Petri nets analysis, planning/heuristic
search in artificial intelligence, and statistical machine learning.

Other:

ARENA project "CONSORT: Consumer Energy Systems Providing
Cost-Effective Grid Support" (2016-present).
CONSORT is a collaboration between
ANU, Tasmanian Networks, Reposit Power, The University of Sydney,
and The University of Tasmania. The project develops techniques for
automatically coordinating consumer-owned PV-battery systems, so
that they simultaneously provide network support and value to their
owners. It will trial these algorithms on Bruny Island, Tasmania, to
reduce the use of diesel using peak events, and will assess the
network's and households' response to the technology.

ACTEW-AGL ANU Endowment project "Modelling and Simulation of Microgrids" (2013-2014). With additional support from NICTA, the project built SmartGridToolbox, an extensible and interfaceable smart grid and microgrid simulator, suitable to generate and evaluate a range of control, optimisation and demand management strategies.

Competitive PhD scholarships are available either directly via ANU or via NICTA, but in both cases, students will be enrolled at and will receive a degree from the ANU and need to apply via the ANU application system.
For information about graduate programs and links to application forms, click here.
For more information about PhD scholarships, click here.

The slides of a presentation, focused on NICTA activities, which I gave to prospective honours and PhD students in 2010, can be found here.

Current Students:

Mark Burgess is pursuing a PhD on energy markets for distribution networks.

Karsten Lehmann is pursuing a PhD on the computational complexity of power systems problems.

is pursuing honours on deep reinforcement learning and planning
I am also Panel Chair for Ksenija Bestuzheva and Shamin Kinathil and an Advisor for Mohammad Abdulaziz, Jing Cui, Franc Ivankovic, and Terrence Mak.